Palit gtx 1080 review: Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition Review

9 января, 2023

Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition Review

Palit GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition

JetStream, Super JetStream, GameRock, and GameRock Premium Edition. Palit sure gives us a lot of options for picking the GeForce GTX 1080 we really want. Unfortunately for our U.S. readers, none of them are readily available. Palit’s «Where to Buy» page lists countries in Asia, Australia, Europe, and Africa, but North and South America are notably missing. Nevertheless, Tom’s Hardware serves an international audience, so we’re reviewing Palit’s GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition (or GPR), its newest flagship.

Palit already reacted to an initial issue we found with its fans and introduced a few changes, namely replacing the fan module. We’re now able to test the latest version of its retail card, and this story reflects those updates. Gaming performance hasn’t changed much, but other features have. Our tests include a new BIOS with a slightly higher power target, per our suggestion.

Technical Specifications

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Exterior & Interfaces

Palit’s shroud is made of relatively thick, white plastic. The card’s top and front are adorned in blue, white, and silver. A hefty 42oz (1181g) weight makes this one of the heaviest GeForce GTX 1080s in our round-up. It measures 11⅓ inches (28.7cm) long, five inches (12.8cm) tall, and a full two inches (5.2cm) wide, occupying a full three expansion slots. Two massive four-inch (10cm) fans with a rotor diameter of 3.8in (9.6cm) highlight the card’s bulky appearance even more.

Image 1 of 2

Around back there’s a single plate without any openings for ventilation. Instead, there’s a GameRock emblem printed on the metal. Plan for an additional one-fifth of an inch (5mm) in depth beyond the plate, which may become relevant in multi-GPU configurations. Since there are no thermal pads between the plate and PCB, the backplate is merely decorative. Although it’s possible to use the card without this plate, removing it requires some disassembly, likely voiding Palit’s warranty.

You’ll find a brightly-lit Palit logo on top of the card. Farther down the board, six- and eight-pin power connectors are rotated 180°. A bulky appearance definitely doesn’t convey modesty.

At its end the card is completely closed off, which makes sense since the fins are positioned vertically and won’t allow any airflow through the front or back anyway.

Image 1 of 2

The rear bracket features five outputs, of which a maximum of four can be used simultaneously in a multi-monitor setup. In addition to one dual-link DVI-D connector (be aware that there is no analog signal), the bracket also exposes one HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4-ready outputs. The rest of the plate is mostly solid, with several openings cut into it that look like they’re supposed to improve airflow, but don’t actually do anything.

Board & Components

Components on Palit’s board seem to be arranged well, aside from the same cheap coils that Nvidia uses on its reference design. We’ll revisit this topic when it comes time to talk about acoustics.

Like all of the other GeForce GTX 1080s, Palit’s GameRock Premium uses GDDR5X memory modules from Micron, which are sold along with Nvidia’s GPU to board partners. Eight memory chips (MT58K256M32JA-100) transferring at 10 MT/s are attached to a 256-bit interface, allowing for a theoretical bandwidth of 320 GB/s.

As we were reviewing Palit’s changes to the 1080 GameRock Premium Edition, after our initial review, we also took a second look at the board. One of this card’s peculiarities is that Palit uses the smaller uPI Semiconductor uP1666 on a separate controller to deal with the memory’s two power phases. Thus, it ends up implementing all eight of the GPU’s phases through the 6+2-phase µP9511P. This removes the need for doubling via multiple converter loops per phase, and primarily benefits balancing.

Two capacitors are installed right below the GPU to absorb and equalize peaks in voltage, similar to Nvidia’s reference design.

Power Results

The graphs show that after warm-up and under load, GPU Boost falls to 1949 MHz and at times even lower. Those fluctuations are more visible than the ones we measured from cards with higher power targets, such as MSI’s GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G. Still, the average GPU Boost clock rate remains pleasantly high, likely due to an elevated initial step.

Let’s now take a look at what the updated BIOS with the higher default power target can do. GPU Boost now stays constant at 2 GHz throughout our gaming loop, which may increase frame rates by up to 2%, slightly exceeding the margin of error in our benchmarks. Frankly, though, the most noticeable improvement should come from smoother animation owing to lower frame times.

The graph corresponding to Palit’s original BIOS shows how voltage follows frequency down over time. While we measured up to 1.062V in the beginning (just as we did with the Founders Edition), that value later drops just below 0.962V.

This is no longer the case with the new BIOS. Not only does the frequency remain constant, but so does voltage. The measured value stabilizes at 1.05V.

Summing up measured voltages and currents, we arrive at a total consumption figure we can easily confirm with our test equipment by monitoring the card’s power connectors.

As a result of Nvidia’s restrictions, manufacturers sacrifice the lowest possible frequency bin in order to gain an extra GPU Boost step. So, the GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition’s power consumption is slightly higher at idle. Palit sets the first step at 291 MHz, resulting in a moderate 10W-higher measurement than competing boards like MSI’s 1080 Gaming X 8G.

Also interesting is that the GameRock Premium’s original BIOS only used 202W during our stress test due to its lower power target. Consumption does rise with the new BIOS, but less than expected. An extra 6W for more stable frequency and voltage curves seems like a small price to pay.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Power Consumption
Idle 10W
Idle Multi-Monitor 11W
Blu-ray 12W
Browser Games 99-116W
Gaming (Metro Last Light at 4K) 212W
Torture (FurMark) 218W
Gaming (Metro Last Light at 4K) @ 2114 MHz 202W

Now let’s take a more detailed look at power consumption when the card is idle, when it’s gaming at 4K, and during our stress test. The graphs show the distribution of load between each voltage and supply rail, providing a bird’s eye view of variations and peaks:

Image 1 of 12

Temperature Results

Of course, waste heat needs to be dissipated as efficiently as possible. The backplate doesn’t help with this at all, instead leaving the work to Palit’s bulky two-and-a-half-slot cooler. 

A copper sink draws heat away from the GPU and distributes it along five pipes (three ⅓-inch/8mm and two¼-inch/6mm). The sink’s fins are oriented vertically, which results in short heat pipes that work more efficiently. The two smaller pipes provide additional area to support the transport of thermal energy away from the copper block and towards the cooler’s edges.

The performance of this truly monstrous cooler leaves little to be desired. Since the temperature target is set around 158°F (70°C), the fans only need to spin slowly, which should have a positive effect on our noise measurements.

Heat transfer away from the VRMs works well despite low fan speeds and minimal airflow. The massive cooler and its many fins make sure of that.

Temperatures do rise at the hot spot during our stress test, but all other areas remain cool enough.

Sound Results

In the interest of transparency, we’re going to present the sound measurements generated from Palit’s first GameRock Premium sample, and then show how the company addressed our concerns.

Whereas automotive enthusiasts might enjoy the roar of a well-oiled machine, we prefer the sound of silence from our graphics cards. When it’s disturbed, the culprit is usually the fans or coils. This card’s fans operate at a maximum of 1000 RPM though, which doesn’t seem worrisome at all.

The fan curve does uncover an unpleasant surprise, though. Since the fans generally start late and remain very quiet, it takes a trained ear to hear that hysteresis doesn’t really work. Palit confirmed our findings and promised a BIOS update to address the issue.

We also talked to Palit’s R&D department about the spikes in this chart. They may not be audible due to the rotor blades’ inertia, but we certainly measured them. In response, Palit decided to replace its fan modules, resulting in only a brief interruption of production. The result speaks for itself: the new card (green curve) no longer demonstrates abnormal behavior:

When the card is idle, its noise is not measurable since Palit implements a semi-passive mode. Naturally, there’s no reason to try taking measurements in that state.

The values we measured under load are blissful, and Palit’s fixes yield a purring kitten instead of a growling tiger. Readings around 34.4 dB(A) are great given the temperatures involved. Only the low-budget coils tend to stick out a bit. If it wasn’t for their audible chirp, you might not even know the GameRock Premium was running.

The new BIOS met our expectations, leading to the stabilization of clock rate and voltages. A power consumption increase of roughly 6W doesn’t cause higher temperatures or more noise, we we’re fine with it.

Our Impression, Post-Update

Palit made the right move by replacing its fan modules and pushing out a new BIOS. The unpleasant RPM spikes disappeared, and so did the noise related to the fan ball bearings. These issues weren’t only noticed by us; they were mentioned in the forums, too. But because the issue was related to variations in production quality, early adopters without the idiosyncrasies we spotted may have gotten lucky.

The new BIOS does not just provide a little extra performance, it also enables slightly better smoothness, since GPU Boost maintains clock rates more consistently instead of jumping around. As of 10/28/16, the updated BIOS is live on Palit’s website for anyone who already owns this card.

Palit GTX 1080 GameRock

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Topics

Components

Nvidia

Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition

Palit has been on its JetStream and Super JetStream cards with the all familiar red-black, silver-black and gold-black accents for years and they have finally decided to come up with new branding this year, the GameRock series. A new white-blue accent has been added to its new cooler design and it’s specially designed for enthusiast gamers who desire to have the ultimate gaming experience.Special thanks to Palit for the provision of the GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition for today’s review and with no further ado, let’s proceed with the review!

(The Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock will be available in both Standard Edition at RM2998 and Premium Edition at RM3280)

Graphics Processing GeForce GTX 1080
Core Clock Boost: 1885 MHz / Base: 1756 MHz ( with 2560 CUDA Cores)
Memory Clock 10500 MHz
Process Technology 16 nm
Memory Size 8 GB
Memory Bus 256 bit
Card Bus PCI-E 3.0 x 16
Memory Type GDDR5X
DirectX 12
OpenGL 4. 5
PCB Form ATX
Digital max resolution 7680×4320 (requires 2*DP1.3 connectors)
Analog max resolution 4096×2160
Multi-view 4
Output Dual-link DVI-D *1
HDMI-2.0b*1 (Max Resolution: 4096×2160 @60 Hz)
Display Port-1.4 *3 (Max Resolution: 7680×4320 @60 Hz)
Recommended PSU 500W
Power Connectors 8 pin*1
Card size H=58 L=285 W=133 mm

The Palit GameRock logo design reminds us of the renown rhythm game ‘Guitar Hero‘ but just to make things clear, the GameRock is Palit’s latest graphics card lineup meant for the gamers and it has nothing to do with the Guitar Hero we know.

Prominent features of the graphics card can be found under the front lid.

Inside the box, you’ll find the Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock graphics card, a 2 x 6-pin PCIe to 8-pin PCIe adapter, drivers CD and a Quick Installation Guide.

The GTX 1080 GameRock comes available in both standard and premium editions that with a higher Base Clock, Boost Clock, and Memory Clock. The standard edition comes with a lower Base Clock of 1645MHz, Boost Clock of 1784MHz and Memory Clock of 10000MHz. Those who prefers higher GPU Clock and Memory Clock can opt for the premium edition with some top-up for Base Clock of 1746MHz, Boost Clock of 1885MHz and Memory Clock of 10500MHz.

The cooling fans used is the TurboFan Blade which Palit claims to generate powerful air streams and pressure to improve cooling performance compared to NVIDIA’s reference design. However, the cooling fans don’t light up like any of Palit’s previous graphics cards.

The GameRock series graphics card is given an ultra-thick heatsink with a copper base to handle the heat from the GPU, mainly for its GTX 1080. The cooler itself is more than enough to tame the heat from this GTX 1080 which has a slightly higher TDP of 200W compared to the GTX 1080 Founders Edition with a TDP of 180W.

The shroud has a built-in RGB LED that changes color according to the GPU temperature on default and may be customized with the ThunderMaster software with up to a total of 16.8 million colors that suits your rig and its theme.

While both the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 Founders Edition now runs only on a single 8-pin PCIe power and PSU requirement as low as 500W, AIB partner’s offer will usually comes with extra. The GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition appears to be a more powerful one with 8+2 power phase design compared to the 5+1 power phase design on the Founders Edition, but the power requirement has gone up from a single 8-pin to 6+8pin PCIe connector.

The GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition comes with a metal backplate with brushed metal finish and GameRock logo printed on. Like any metal backplate you’ve ever seen, the metal backplate here does pretty much the same by enhancing the overall rigidity of the card to prevent PCB sagging that usually occurs on graphic cards with a large heat sink.

There are also features that support the overclocking elites, where extra modification can be done to achieve better results in benchmark scores.

The dip switch located at the back of the graphics card is Palit’s playing safe feature which allows you to toggle between the 2 BIOS available. BIOS 1 is Palit’s overclocked version for higher GPU Clock and Memory Clock while BIOS 2 is what appears to be the BIOS for the Founders Edition card as the GPU Clock and Memory Clock observed is identical to the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. If you’re a power user in mind and plan to flash the GPU with a much powerful BIOS, you can backup the BIOS via Palit ThunderMaster software as a safety measure in case if you still need the original BIOS.

SLI fingers are still available on the card, but as NVIDIA discourages any setup beyond 2-way SLI. NVIDIA and its partners have released a new SLI bridge that is supposed to support only 2-way SLI and improved performance compared to the older version of SLI bridge that used to come along as an accessory with motherboards.

The display output option is pretty common nowadays, 1 x DVI-I connector, 3 x DisplayPort and 1 x HDMI port.

Test Rig Configuration
CPU Cooler Raijintek Triton 240
CPU Intel Core i7 4790K @4.6GHz
Motherboard ASUS Maximus Hero VII
Memory G.Skill TridentX 2400MHz
Primary Hard Drive Crucial M500 120GB
Power Supply Be Quiet! Straight Power 10 600W
Chassis Vector Bench case

We mounted the GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition on our test bench as above and each and every benchmark is conducted in a room of about 30C° ambient temperature.

We ran a few graphically demanding games and synthetic benchmarks in our possession on a selected settings at 1080p, which is considered as high for much of our test as usual. The final result of each benchmark is presented in the form of the graph below:

Performance Comparison With NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition
We’ve done a performance comparison with a Founders Edition of the GeForce GTX 1080 and the result of the clash between the two beast of a card is as following:

Overclocking
We ran the same graphically demanding games and synthetic benchmark on 1080p with the highest achievable clock speed for both its memory and GPU that is stable enough to be able to complete each benchmark with the following values:

  • 77MHz raise on the GPU core clock
  • 584MHz raise on the memory clock
  • Extra 20% gain on the power

That isn’t much due to the card has been highly overclocked by Palit, but we managed to hit a beefy 2108MHz GPU clock speed on boost during our benchmark session.

Performance Comparison With NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition
We’ve done a performance comparison with a Founders Edition of the GeForce GTX 1080, both overclocked and we’re seeing a quite near results as following:

Temperature wise, the GameRock cooler is doing its job very well as we’ve observed a very decent temperature record of 45°C during idle and 72°C on load while running on default clock speed when the card is stressed with the FurMark burn-in test for an hour. Bumping up the GPU core clock with an extra 77MHz results in slightly higher temperature of 74°C for the FurMark burn-in test.

Performance wise, the Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition is no doubt one of the most powerful GTX 1080 around based on its out of the box performance.  It can easily overpower the GTX 1080 Founders Edition without needing to overclock the card. While you can overclock it to squeeze for more performance, its overclocking headroom appears to be limited to 77MHz at most. Still, the effective boost clock recorded are very close to an overclocked GTX 1080 Founders Edition with extra 248MHz boost.The cooling performance with the GameRock series graphics card cooler is just awesome, with the temperature topped only at 72°C on default clock and 74°C after overclocked. An even better performance can be achieved with the fans running at 100% without sacrificing too much of its acoustic performance, all thanks to its TurboFan design and ultra-thick heat sink.

Down to the prize, both Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Standard Edition and Premium Edition comes at the price of RM2998 and RM3280 respectively. It’s not really a friendly price to begin with but if we were to compare it with all custom GTX 1080 in the market, Palit is probably one of the few brands with the best deal around – it has a way better performance and it’s few hundred bucks cheaper than a Founders Edition card at RM3399.

Pros

  • Combination of both aesthetics and solid build quality
  • Easily overpowering both GTX 980Ti and GTX Titan X
  • Dual BIOS feature allows user to play safe with custom BIOS
  • Good overclocking headroom on BIOS 2
  • One of the best performing and most affordable GTX 1080 in the market

Cons

  • BIOS 1 has limited overclocking headroom due to its already high GPU Clock and Memory Clock
  • Not easy to match with themed build that is not white and blue
  • It takes up to 2. 5 slot, which is not an ideal choice for SLI if you’re using a mATX form factor motherboard
  • ThunderMaster software GUI needs some improvement – the blue is overwhelming

 

Review and testing of the video card Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition

Contents

  • Introduction
  • Review Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition
    • Appearance and dimensions
    • PCB
    • Cooling system
    • Panel OC
  • Test stand
  • Instrumentation and Test Method
  • Cooling System Potential Study
  • Details
  • Electricity consumption level
  • 3DMark test results
  • Conclusion

Introduction

The Palit brand is well known to domestic users due to the attractive price of its models and their quick appearance on store shelves. The object of research in our test lab was a new brainchild of Palit engineers, released under the name GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition.

Here we note that initially the external OC Panel was not included in the package of delivery of the video card, it was subsequently delivered separately. Collectively, this is called the GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition + G-Panel. In this review, we will find out whether the new product deserves attention compared to the reference version of the GeForce GTX 1080 and whether it is worth paying extra for the panel.

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Review Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition

Appearance and dimensions



Model

A,

mm

b,

mm

c,

mm

D,

mm

A1,

mm

b1,

mm

C1,

mm
Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition

267

120

52

96

282

120

57
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070/ GTX 1080

267

98

36

64

267

98

40

– PCB length, excluding cooling system and video output port bracket.
B — PCB width, excluding PCI-E pins and cooling system.
C — height from the horizontal plane of the printed circuit board to the level of the top surface of the cooling system.
D – diameter of the fan/s along the outer radius.

A1 – length of the printed circuit board, including the cooling system (if it extends beyond the printed circuit board) to the bracket for the video output ports.
B1 – width of the printed circuit board, excluding PCI-E pins, but including the measurement of the cooling system (if it extends beyond the printed circuit board).
C1 — height, taking into account the back plate (if any) / radiator mounting screws to the level of the upper surface of the cooling system. If it is lower than the height of the back plate of the video output ports, then the height is measured to the top point of the bar.

The Palit video card turned out to be quite large, especially in terms of its thickness. Instead of the usual 35-40 mm, the company decided to take two and a half expansion slots, but at the same time, it cleverly used the extra thickness to improve cooling. The radiator of the standard cooling system is very thick and productive.

Holes are made in the back plate to remove heated air. Such a simple and elegant step made it possible to additionally remove heat from the case. It is not clear why other manufacturers neglect such an elementary solution. True, in this case, for the sake of this, we had to sacrifice the DVI port, instead of which DisplayPort was installed.


In total, the video card provides the ability to connect up to four displays, despite the presence of five ports: one DVI, three DisplayPort and one HDMI 2.0. All GP104-based models feature the latest generation of video outputs: DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, and a fully digital DVI-D connector.

Alas, now it’s impossible to connect old monitors via DVI-D even with an adapter, keep that in mind. The maximum available resolution is 7680 x 4320 @60Hz.

PCB

Manufacturers usually don’t risk using a unique PCB in the early stages of a new GPU’s life. But the developers of Palit not only managed to completely redo it, but also introduced several useful features.

In total, eight power phases are allocated for the GPU, made using Dr.MOS technology. At the same time, the coils migrated from the reference printed circuit board. We will probably hear them again during the noise level test. Two phases are used for memory chips.

The phases on the video card are real, without doublers or parallel connection. Therefore, in total, such a circuit will provide more than 600 watts. Let me remind you that the reference version consumes only 180 watts. There is more than double the power reserve. Why was such a system needed? The answer lies at the end of the model.


If necessary, on the Palit version, the current and overvoltage protection can be disabled. Another good news for overclockers is that the place where the protections are removed is not hidden by the warranty sticker. Carefully removing the resistor is a matter of five minutes. Nearby there is a ground, and +5 V, and +12 V. Well, the voltage measurement points are a logical appendage for a complete set of an enthusiast.

A pair of connectors is used to power the video card: 6 pin + 8 pin. In total, according to the specifications, they give 75 +150 watts. Up to 75W is provided by the PCI-e slot. As a result, the Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition gets 300 honest watts.


Palit has radically redesigned the circuit board, but has remained true to the recommended power system specifications. The uP9511P is used as a PWM controller. The controller is new and I haven’t been able to find a specification for it yet.


If a misfire occurred during the witchcraft over the BIOS, it is easy to fix it by setting the BIOS switch to the second position.


Eight Micron GDDR5X D9TXS memory chips, rated at 2500 MHz, located on the front side.

The GP104 graphics processor was assembled on a substrate in 2016, more precisely in the 19th week.

The declared frequencies of the video card Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition: 1746 MHz (GPU Boost up to 1885 MHz), memory — 10 500 MHz.